I'm Pete Wright. And I'm Andy Nelson. Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
Our conversation begins.
Ju-on: the curse is over. Once you encounter it, it will never let you go. So we're talking about this movie because it's your series, and it's a big fat welcome to a new series in this season.
That's right. I wanted to since it's 2025, I thought it'd be fun to look at the past hundred years of films. And so last week, we did ballerina, which was a 2025 film. This week, we kick off our series, starting with Ju On because the first Ju On, feature film, feature length film that came out on video, just to clarify, came out in the year February. And so we're gonna so this is our silver screen is twenty five years of Ju On, and we'll be looking only we're only looking at four of them.
I know there are, like, 15 films.
And a show? I didn't even know there was a show for crying out loud.
There's so much stuff with this franchise. It's crazy. But we're going to be specifically talking about the very, very first feature ish length film. It's only, like, seventy minutes. But, yeah, Takashi Shimizu, made it released it in the year February, the same year as the second film, Jew on the Curse.
Yeah. Just wait till we talk about that one. You think that one's you think this one's short.
Oh, I know. That'll be an interesting conversation. Then we'll do the grudge and the grudge two. And then we'll save room for the other ones down the road. But for this, start of this series, these first four should be an interesting jump into the franchise. And, you know, I mean, had you seen any of these films, including the American remakes, before before we started this?
The one I remember the only the only thing I remember and only in in splashes of imagery is the Sarah Michelle Gellar one. Right? That was the the first remake of The Grudge. Right? That was the It was. American remake of The Grudge. Okay.
Which had two sequels, I believe. And actually, the first film, I think, also was directed by Takashi Shimizu, if if memory serves.
I think you're right. So I don't remember it very well, especially I I feel like I'm everything all the imagery is getting all mixed up, Andy. There's kids crawling. There's kids crawling upside down. Oh my goodness. Kids wearing a lot of eyeliner.
Hands coming up through hair while you're taking a shower.
That was a tough image. That's a tough one to let go of. Not gonna lie. So why this why this one? Was it just its epicness in the j horror universe?
I think so. I mean, I had a few options. Final destination was another option, for a horror series from the year February. And and, I mean, with a recent movie having just come out, there's certainly room to have a conversation about that. This one, I I think I just wanted to do something different.
And and jumping into j horror and tackling this, which has really kind of just grown in such epic size, I think, is the reason that I went with this. I think it's an interesting one because it does tackle some interesting elements with technology. We have the ghosts using phones, you know, calling people on phones. And, so I I think it's an interesting element to look at as far as what was going on in the world of j horror, Japanese horror at this particular point in time and what, Shimizu chose to, take on with this particular story about a curse that is very much just it's about anger, and it doesn't let go very easily. In fact, it starts the film with this text.
A curse born Juwan, a curse born when a person dies in a powerful rage. It gathers where the dead person lived and becomes a stain. Anyone who touches it dies, and a new curse is born. Things are already going great. Things are already going great. So where do you wanna start? Should we start with I mean, initial thoughts. Let let let's get a sense as to what you thought of this one.
Well, I think the movie is good. I enjoyed my time with it. I struggle with try with with being able to say definitively if I enjoyed it because of the story itself, because of the performances, because of the structure, which is crazy pants, or because of just the technical achievement, being able to to inspire thrilling sort of horrific images with the technology that they had at the time, right, through cutting and lighting and being able to actually do that and appear super authentic and and scary. Like, I I I think all of those things are going for this movie. It it may be the the final result may be less than the sum of its parts, but not that much less.
Like, I can see very clearly why this movie spawned a franchise as it did. There are some very haunting things going in on in here. And the moment I finished it, I wanted to just continue watching these movies. I wanted to see where it could possibly go from here. So those are my initial thoughts. Great experience. Solid movie. Antique by today's horror standards, and I'm excited to see what's next.
I mean, antique, but at the same time, I think it's not it doesn't feel old fashioned. It just feels restrained. And I I mean, obviously, restrained by budget. That was a big element that they had to had to deal with. Significant restraint.
But at the same time, I think that Shimizu built something that really carried the, just a growing sense of dread about this house. Like, always it always was uncomfortable. And and that was something I was impressed with, especially on such a low budget. You know? I mean, I think it helps with kind of the restrained shooting style, a lot of still shots with not a lot of movement in camera.
And I also really think that it helped with breaking up the story into this kind of six part six little stories about this particular house that we're following, and it's not in chronological order. So we're getting kind of jumping back and forth in time with it. And I also think that there's some potential connection to, to the short films that also are very short. Right? Like, and a half minute short films that came out before this.
Two years, 1998, there was Kadasumi and 444444444, which is the phone number that the ghost calls from, which is 4 the number 4 apparently is a very unlucky number in Asian cultures. And so the fact that it's calling from all should signal people don't answer that call. Just let it ring. But, I mean, there is something about a phone that just won't stop ringing that I don't know. Are we innately drawn to answer? Is that
I think we are. I think that's a that's a cultural impossibility to let the phone ring anymore.
Yeah. So but, anyway, I I liked it. I liked it quite a bit.
Like, so much of that. And one of the things that I really like about what the movie is doing is it's saying, hey. Look at these old belief systems that modern like, modernity no longer sort of understands or has internalized, we're gonna make that scary again. Like, they should have not answered the phone. Right?
They should have not done so many of the things that they do. Go in the house, go into the room. Like, they they're just there were red flags, and they ignored the red flags and became cursed irreparably.
There's an interesting sense to the story also in the way that the ghosts don't feel restrained to the house even though, I don't know, based on what I read earlier, like, were killed in the house. They've become a stain. Don't touch that stain, or you're gonna get killed too. But the ghosts can move around. And one of our stories follows I I'm not sure if it was the girlfriend or just a friend, but Mizuho, she shows up at school looking for her I don't know.
I I again, I I I'm not sure if it's her boyfriend or what, but, she's looking for she's looking for the brother, Tsuyoshi, at school because his bike is there. Right? She sees she has tried to call him, and he's not answering. She sees his bike at school. And so she talks to one of his friends, and he's just like, I haven't seen him.
I don't know where he is, but his bike's here, so he must be around. And then the teacher comes out ready to close the school. He's like, what are you doing here? And she's like, oh, I'm looking for my friend. And the teacher's, like, really irritated.
Seems like, you know, you're in trouble. Come to the office, and I I'm gonna look for him, and you're both busted now is kind of the way that that's being played. But then the teacher puts her in the room in the classroom, and Mizuho is now hanging out in this classroom. Presumably, because we know that Tsuyoshi lives in the house where the ghosts are, we're assuming that he has been killed. I mean, we don't know what's happened to him.
But now Toshio, the little boy ghost, attacks her or, like, shows up, like, pitter pattering around the classroom and shows up. And she's hiding under a desk, and she reaches up trying to get the phone that's ringing above. And, of course, it's his ankle, and, you know, that we don't know what's gonna happen to Mizuho, but we are sure it's not good. So, obviously, they're they're moving around also. Right?
Yeah. Yeah. They show up anywhere. Because once the curse grabs the person, it doesn't let go of the person. So wherever the person goes, that's the that's the book of the vampire of this story.
Right. Right. Right. I feel like we should talk about the story.
Yeah. Do you wanna do it chronologically by character? By
I'm thinking let's do it chronologically just so we can make sure we're making sense of the story. Oh, good luck. And then oh, I think it's I think it's not that hard to figure out.
My goodness. Okay. Alright. Here we go. It starts with the school teacher.
Yes. It starts with the school teacher who, well, yes. But even before the school teacher, well, we should just say, like, there was a there's a backstory that were that we get bits and pieces of through all of this. And that backstory is that this school teacher had gone to school with Kayako, and she seemed to have an attachment to him, perhaps an unhealthy attachment to him. Right?
Like, there is this sense. And he says to his pregnant wife, it's like, oh, because because he's, I don't know, the what do you what do you think of how teachers are meant to operate over in Japan as far as, like, going going to do a home check on a child? Is that I feel like American society yeah. American society would never allow that.
Yeah. No. I think there are many societies that have gone and done away with frontiersque home checks done by teachers.
Well, granted, this was twenty five years ago, So time has changed.
They nobody did a home check on me when I was well, twenty five years ago, I was out of school. I was not in elementary school anymore. Okay. Okay. Bad comparison. Let's go then to Takeo again. Takeo and Kayako.
Yes. So Takeo, Seiki, and and Kayako, his wife. Mhmm. And they have the son Toshio. And a cat. He is a clearly a very jealous husband. Yes. And because of this crush that she has on on Kobayashi, Takeo kills Kayako, Toshio, and the family cat. Right. And the family cat is left, like, in a sticky puddle under some cardboard in the backyard. Bad news.
Just so bad news.
Just bad. In the bathtub because we also have a flash to that. Anyway, That's the beginning of this curse that we have here.
Well and then Takeo dies, and the implication is that he dies because of the curse that he unleashed.
But he dies later in the story, though. Right. Like, that's that's much later. Because right now, we know that he's not only angry at Kayako and so takes it on his his entire family, but he also blames a lot of this on Kobayashi who also happens to be Toshio's teacher. So he sees this as this love triangle, and he wants revenge on everybody even though Kayako is obsessed, but Kobayashi has no clue about any of this.
He has his own pregnant wife at home. She's about to deliver, and he has never thought about Kayako apparently in that way. And now that he realizes he has to do a home check because Toshio is not showing up at school, he has a very uneasy feeling about the process of having to actually go and talk to Kaeiko. Like, that's how the whole thing plays. Right?
Yes. For sure. Awkward potential love triangle. Weird. And and then he gets to the house. Now the house, because of the curse, the house is cursed, we're to I think at this point, we understand because of the opening text that anyone who enters the house is going to be doomed.
Yeah. I was a little unsure of that because I wasn't sure what the implication was by, anyone who touches the stain. Like, what what actually is entailed to touch the stain? Is it entering the house, or is it, like, physical contact with one of the ghosts? What is that actual like, when does when is it decided that you are now bound to be destroyed by this curse?
Okay. That is a great question because of some characters who do come into the house and we presumably are are okay, I think
Yes. At the end? I think so.
And so that is a great question because at the beginning, my assumption was you go in the house, you're doomed. That's not actually how it plays out, but mostly it does.
Well, I yeah. I'm curious because we'll talk about this as we get to these other families that, you know, progressively appear in the story and move into the house and then leading into the next film. Because I haven't seen it, but you have, but there is we end on, I suppose you could say, it's not exactly a cliffhanger, but there is a moment that we have at the end of this film that I guess gets resolved pretty early on in the next film. Yeah.
Early is doing a lot of work.
Early in the new material. Okay. Alright. So we have Kobayashi who goes over to the house to figure out what's going on with Toshio. He finds what he thinks is, like, some sort of, like, dead thing in the backyard under the cardboard, and he hears and he's hearing a cat meowing, and then he goes around the corner of the house, and he sees Toshio hanging out in the bathroom with his arms, like, hanging out the window.
And he goes to talk to Toshio, and it seems like Toshio passes out or something. And he's like, you know, it he doesn't answer as far as are your parents home? Or I think he might say at that point that they're both out. And so because the kid passes out, Kobayashi runs around and enters the house and is like, hello. I'm coming in.
Nobody seems to be here. So he goes and he helps the kid, and he puts him on the couch, and and he's trying to get him to like, he's showing him drawings that he's done at school, and he's trying to figure out what's going on with his parents, and he's gonna wait. And so he calls his wife to let her know, I've gotta hang out here and wait for these parents who just aren't here. And he's hanging out for a while. And that's kind of that's that's the bulk of his the start of his story until later in the evening.
Right?
Right. Which where things get dark for him.
How does so far, I mean, is the story playing well? Like, the the way that the story's unfolding? Are you Yeah.
Yeah. But in in hindsight, because, you know, there is that discomfort of realizing this is happening out of order, that things are happening out of order. And so it takes a little bit sort of narratively to figure that out, to figure out what's what's going on. I don't think I had I don't think I had figured it out yet what was going on at this point. Yeah. I I I don't think I was meant to.
Well, and this is the first story. So we are kind of at least starting with something that makes sense for where things are going. We just haven't had as much of the backstory as we've already kind of watched.
Discussed. Right. Right.
And so as he's kind of waiting, he I don't know. I can't remember. He hears something upstairs. He goes up to look around, and that's when he finds the room. Or he downstairs, he sees a ripped up photo, and he puts it together, and it's the family photo, but the wife's face is missing.
And so he ends up upstairs, and he's looking around in a room, and he finds all these torn out faces of the wife laying on a thing from all of the different family pictures. And then he finds the journal, which is her journal at describing her essential, like, fascination and obsession with him, which freaks him out. And that's what sets him off like, I have to get out of here. Oh, no. And then he looks up into the attic, and he's he hears a noise, and he sees a dead body up there.
And he's like, I gotta get this kid and get out of here. He goes downstairs and Toshio's gone. And is that when the phone rings?
Because the body in the attic is who?
Well, the body in the that's a good question. I think the body in the attic that he sees, I think that was actually Kayako. Okay. Because later, it's the Murakami family who have moved in, and the daughter ends up getting killed in the attic. But I don't think unless he's seeing the future ghost of her, I think it's just Kayako.
I think it's Kayako, but we know that Takeo killed Kayako and Toshio and the cat at the same time. So Toshio is already a ghost.
Toshio is a ghost already. Correct.
Got it. And so he's in the house with a bunch of ghosts, and he's already he is now bound to the curse. So he tries to get out of the house when he sees the body.
And this is a question, like, I would because he picks up Toshio after he passes out and takes him into the room. So I'm like, he touches him. Does okay. So I'm like, okay. So then he's screwed because he's made contact with one of the ghosts.
Completely hosed.
Right. And and the phone rings, and it is actually Takeo who is calling to tell him basically, hey. Guess what, loser? Your wife's had your baby. It's a girl. And we see the it's horrifying. We see the bloody fetus, like, on the he he the the phone booth he is in is covered in blood. This man has lost his mind. Incredibly bloody phone booth. He's got the fetus, and it's he puts it in a bag. And after he calls, it's like, yeah. You're you
had your
baby. And basically, like, this is how destructive this man has become. Like, he is so full of rage that he's killed his family, and now he's basically destroyed Kobayashi's as well. And then as he walks down the street, he's got this fetus in the bag, and he's just smacking it into the ground and into the wall. I mean, it's just it's awful. Absolutely horrifying.
And Manami is dead. The wife is dead.
By the way, we are completely spoiling this movie if you
Oh, good. Good. Know this show by now. Yeah. If
you're tuning in for this show for the very first time, just be aware. Yeah. We're gonna Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. So Manami is dead too. Manami is is Tosh or is Kobayashi's wife. And she's she's gone, and the baby's gone.
And then and then Takeo, as he's walking down the street, he gets attacked by a garbage bag, and it turns out Kaeyko has appeared in there to come and get him.
Right.
Yeah. So now he's gone. So now he's gone. And and she attacks the school teacher. He's getting this phone call, and then she he's seen her in the attic, she comes crawling down the stairs doing that kind of creepy stair walk that she does, and, that's the end of him.
So that's the end of this first part of our story, which we've covered, like, the Toshio section of it, and I think I can't remember. The other section of that, I think, is in the actual Kayako section. Like, it's the first and last sections of our story.
Right. Because the Kayak Kayako is now we're getting into the real estate magnate part, the real estate agents, Tatsuya and and Kyoko.
Before we get into them, though, this isn't the next section is the Murakami family. That's the next family that moves in before the real estate family.
Good good point. Okay.
Alright. So at some point, this house has been dealt with and cleaned out, and now the Murakami family is living there. There's there's Kana. Her tutor Yuki are there. Her mom says hello to them and then walks out, and her brother Tsuyoshi. So we've got those four people in this house. And Guess what? They start seeing some weirdo stuff too. Right. Exactly.
We start with the two girls doing the tutoring in the girls' room. And this is where I felt like, wow. The writing has gone downhill suddenly. The performances have drastically dropped. Everything about this second story, filmically, really took a turn. And I was like, oof. We just entered rough territory. But and I don't know if it was the girls or what, but, like, their dialogue about boyfriends and stuff like that, like, I was like, this is this is gonna be rough. This is gonna be
rough. Did it ever resolve for you after this this period of roughness?
It does because we luckily, we get out of the the them talking about boyfriends and and all of that. And
I could take it or leave it. Their story. You're right. Like, I I I didn't find a whole lot there.
Well, because the tutor remembers that she has to go to school to feed the school rabbits. Like, she looks at the time and realizes, oh, crap. I gotta get out of here. Now was that the same actor? That was Yuki, and it was Hitomi Miwa. Was that the same actor in the short film? That was Kadasumi. Hitomi Miwa was in the movie. In Kadasumi, it's not. It's Ayako, Omura, Kanakashima, Takako Fuji.
Oh, Takako Fuji is in it. Has Kayako Seiki.
Yeah. She's Kayako. She comes in as as Kayako at the end. But the two girls are different. She has this moment where it's like she looks at the time and suddenly runs out. The way that that happened was so strange because it's we don't get a cutaway to the clock or anything. Like, she looks up, like, which something that happens in this films. People look up and there's something on the ceiling.
So much looking up.
And she looks up and she has this look on her face like, oh, crap. There's a ghost up there. But then she's just like, I forgot I have to go to the school and feed the rabbits. So I was like, oh, okay. Off you go then. Is she the one who it's is it her dead body that we find later? Or is it I thought so. Okay. It's not the girls from the short film.
No. I don't I don't believe that's true.
Because that's essentially the same story in the short film. Like, you've got two girls who are late to feed the rabbits at school. They run over there to do so, and then Kayako shows up and kills them.
One of them has to step away. The other one gets Kayako'd. And when the first girl comes back, they're both the girls. Kayako and the girl are there to Kayako her. And now everybody's Kayako'd.
They're all Kayako'd. Exactly.
But in this case, there is a there is a moment here. Right? When she is searching through the attic. Right, this is Yuki, is searching up to the attic and lights the lighter.
It's not Yuki who's searching the attic. Right?
Yuki is her tutor. How does Yuki die then?
Yuki is the one who leaves to go feed the rabbit. And so she's the body that they that they're talking about at the morgue. Kana is the one who pokes her head up into the attic.
Okay. Okay. Kana's looking in the attic, sees Kayako's face when she lights the lighter, and gets pulled up into the attic. Right?
Yeah. It's very confusing because this chapter is called Yuki.
Yes. That is very confusing. So so Yushi leaves the house after she's taken up into the attic. That moment is really is is great and frightening. And I think anytime in these movies when you have somebody lighting an isolated light source in front of haunted ghost face, it's worth a scare. And it's like points are on the board. These are great jumps for me. Good moments.
And that's, I think, why, overall, this section was a little more frustrating for me because the acting between the two women I don't again, I don't know if it's the acting. I don't know if I can fairly blame it on them because I felt that the dialogue, the written dialogue was just rough. It was just rough dialogue that they had to say. But once we got through that and once Yuki has that weird moment where she looks up at the clock and runs out of the house really quick, then then we get
Pray tell. What do we get? Did you freeze?
No. I I don't know. I'm getting very confused. Because as I'm looking at this, I'm realizing that Kana is the student. Okay. See, this is where I got confused. So Yuki okay.
Because so the daughter is Kana. Yuki is the tutor. And mother is Norco, who tells the girls that she's leaving for a while.
I guess the reason that I was confused is because Kana runs out of the house to go check on the rabbits and leaves the tutor in her house. I think that's why I was thinking it was her house. So that was a little weird. It's like Right. You stay here in my house. I have to go to school and feed the rabbits.
Yeah. That's a good point. That's fair.
That's why I think I'm I was confused about that. So there's some yeah. There's a little bit of awkwardness as far as, like, who actually lives here. Because I don't know. It's weird to just leave I mean, I they're obviously somewhat friendly as well, but still just leave them in your house while you go off to get some errands done.
Right. And so, I mean, does that settle it? Does that settle why Kana is gone and Yuki is searching for the phantom noise alone? Culturally, we don't leave tutors alone in our homes, but they do.
I guess. I guess. It's odd. And we know that she doesn't like cats. Like, the first thing we see when she's sitting down to do her tutoring is she turns all the little statues of the cats away so they're not looking at her. Right?
Right. And especially because that's like the last thing the mother says. Right? Is mother's leaving and says, hey. There's a cat on the prowl. Be you know, take care
of the rabbits. Well, even the mom, as she's walking out the front, like, pauses when she hears that meow.
Yeah.
Almost as if she's gonna investigate, but there's like, I'll deal with it later.
Yeah. Right. Which seems that's another thing that's hard to what are they afraid of with the cats? Is it just because they have rabbits?
Well, they don't have rabbits. The rabbits are at school.
Is it just maybe it's just because Yuki is afraid of cats, and she's just trying to be conscientious.
Maybe. Or maybe it's just because you don't want I don't know. It's it it is weird. Like, if there's a cat howling outside my house, unless they're fighting, I really don't bother with it. You know? I don't worry too much. If I hear a cat fight, though, I'll try to separate them.
You break up cat fights, though. Okay. That's good. I just learned something about you. I didn't I didn't know that that
I mean, I don't physically do it. I like, you know, make noises and scare them. I don't, like, pull them apart and have a little chat with them about being nice
to each other. And then you scream at them, we don't talk about Fight Club.
Alright. So okay. So it's Yuki, the tutor, who's left alone in their house for whatever reason. She's afraid of cats.
And Kana, the daughter who lives there, is gone.
Yeah. She's like looks at the clock, and I'm out of here.
But who else is there? Is Tsu, Tsuyoshi and his girlfriend Mizuho? He is there. You're right. Because she embarrasses him about the girlfriend.
Okay. So he yeah. That's right. Because he's there. She is in the room, and she goes out of the room because something scary happens. And when she goes into the hallway, suddenly, it's like night in the hallway.
Yeah. Spooky.
Yeah. That was great. And then she sees that cat coming up the hallway, and she's like, what the hell? She goes into the room, and the cat kind of chases her. It's playing with her her headphone cord that's dangling down from her neck. And it for decides the best thing I can do is I'm gonna climb up into to the upper levels of the closet to get away from the cat. And of course
As you do.
Here here's something above her, and it's, of course, Kayako who who takes her and kills her. Right. So that's that's the end of Yuki. And now her body is and and as you said, she's the one who brings the lighter up and lights it, and and Kayako is, like, literally right in front of her,
which Yeah.
I mean, moments like this are great. Like, this is what I think Shimizu does so well with the way that he crafts these stories is it's it makes for incredibly creepy moments, and it just builds a great sense of dread throughout these stories. Even if I struggle with the characters, moments like this make it shine.
For sure. That's why, like, you you're so right. Like, this kind of anodyne opening to this segment is forgettable, but, boy, the end is just not. And that leads us to we we should talk about Mizuho now, that school.
Yeah. We kind of already did. But, yeah, she's at the school waiting for Tsuyoshi, who supposedly is there because his bike is there. But I was try because we do see him leave the house.
Because this happens. This is legitimately after the first part. This isn't playing with time here. This just we go to Mizuho now later who is at school.
Or is this earlier? I think this is later because we see Tsuyoshi at home after Yuki has been kind of taken up into the the rafters. He comes out of his room. Everything is daylight again, and he doesn't hear anything, so he just leaves. And so we see him leave the house. And but he never makes it to school, but somehow his bicycle does. Or he makes it to school and is taken to school. I'm not exactly sure.
Right. Or did he leave school without his bicycle? Was that something that we didn't see?
We never see anything. We just see him leave the house and, yeah, suddenly and this is why it's like, I I don't think we ever find out what happened to him. Do we? Do we? All we know is that he has disappeared, and Mizuho is looking for him at school, and she gets taken by Toshio. Right. This is
after she picks up the phone, and it was the cat calling her.
Right. Brilliant. 444 number. Right.
And then she looks down, and it's Toshio. And he looks haunting as ever.
Yeah. It's always creepy, especially there's a shot earlier of Kobayashi when he's on the phone. No. He's looking out the window when he's when he has Toshio sitting on the couch behind him, and he's hearing that cat. He looks out the window to see, like, where is this cat out here?
And we get this great shot of him facing out as he looks around, and we have Toshio out of focus in the background, but we can see his mouth moving and we realize that's when we realize he's the one making the meowing sounds.
Yeah. Haunting. Creepy. Haunting in camera play with depth of field that is super scary. Really innovative. Yeah. That's great. And underappreciated. Underappreciated by my like, things that he was capable of generating in this movie so simply. It's really, really great.
So Mizuho gets taken at school, and now we go into the story of Kana, and this is the the detectives. We start this with our detectives who Yoshikawa and Kamio. And they're looking at this mutilated body of a high schooler. This is a different girl. This is Hisayo Hoshida who is killed. One of two students scheduled to feed the rabbits. The other one had to have been, I mean, it had to have been Kana because of what happens to her when she comes home.
Okay. Right. The body is found at school dismembered with dead rabbits and a jaw nearby.
A human jaw. I thought they said in her regardless.
Okay. I didn't catch that. There was a jaw. We then we we don't find the body to whom the jaw belongs.
No. Her body is so horribly mutilated. They're like, there's no way that this could have just happened. But it it couldn't, like, it couldn't be suicide. We don't know what would have done this.
Now the cadet comes in at that point and says, hey. A witness had seen two girls, Hisaya Hisayo and Kana come to feed the rabbits. And we're now sure that those are not the the girls in Katsuyama. Wait. Was that the name of the short film in the short film? Karasumi. Right? Karasumi.
It is Hisayo and Kana.
So that's the story
that we picked up different actresses. Okay.
This is the investigation of the death of the girls behind the school that we saw in the short film.
Correct. Great. And Kana is the one who is the the last mutilated girl. And it was Kana's jaw. No. Kana's the Kana's the first mutilated girl. Hisayo finds her. So Kana is the one who's laying in the debris. And
yeah.
I mean, it's it's helpful to go watch these short films. They are on YouTube. They're very short. Like, you can and they're in one video file. We'll put a link in the show notes. You could just watch these back to back. It just gives you kind of a setup for these stories, but Kanasumi gives you kind of this particular story of how Hisayo and Kana got killed as they were, caring for the rabbits.
Right. And we do see Kana missing the jaw later with the face kind of pulled off.
Right. Because after the detectives chat a little bit, we see mom come home. So Noriko comes home, and she's calling out the kids. No one seems to be home. Actually, I think this might be one of those things, like, where does this take place in the line? Because she gets a phone call, and I think it's I think it's Mizuho who she's talking to. Because she's saying like, oh, he's not here. She's calling for me. I don't think he's here.
Yeah. Because she's looking for Tai Tsuyoshi.
Yeah. So I think that the stories are kind of happening simultaneously because we have and then somebody comes in, and we see behind mom who's not looking, whoever it is who makes it into the house is definitely covered in blood. They're not looking good.
For sure.
And they start shuffling up the stairs. Mom hears them, puts the phone down, and goes, to she notices the blood trail on the floor and follows them up. And sure enough, it is her daughter, Kana, who has come home, and Kana is missing a jaw and comes for mom. And that's the end of that's the end of mom. Mhmm.
Yeah. Okay. That takes us back to Kyoko. Yeah. Back at the Kobayashi and at the Seiki house. Years now we're years before. Right?
Well, we have the Kayako story, and then we go to Kyoko. And that's what you're talking about. Because the Kayako story finished finished kind of the whole thing. That's where we see the the final story of the teacher and the husband and the resolution of of destroying the fetus and
That's right.
And then we go to Kyoko, and this is jumping forward to the point where the Murakami family, they're all dead, and the police have done their investigation, left everything there. And this eager realtor, Tatsuya, has purchased the house for cheap thinking that he'll be able to turn it over in some way. This is a really interesting story because he brings his sister, Kyoko, to look at the house because she has some sense of spiritualism. Like, she can connect to ghosts and stuff like that and wants to get her read on the house and if there's a way that he can potentially get rid of whatever evil energies are there so that he can more easily sell it. And that's where and and you can get a sense.
Like, as soon as they show up at the house, like, she's already hesitant to walk through the
gate. Yes.
And I thought that was like, this story, I thought was really interesting and a great way to end end this film. I don't know. I just I find it interesting to kind of take it on in this way where we have now somebody who has a connection to the spirits, but we're also getting a sense of, is it only people who can sense the spirits who are gonna run into this issue because of this whole sake thing that is worth talking about?
Well, the sake thing is worth talking about for sure because she sets up a new rule that he does not follow. Right? And the rule is if these people give them some of the sake. If these people drink it, the potential buyers. If they drink it and they what was the rule? If they like it, then they shouldn't buy the house?
If they like it, they're fine.
Oh, if they like it, they're fine. If they are repulsed by it, then they shouldn't buy the house.
Yeah. Particularly, it's like a refined sake is is what she said. For whatever reason, that's the ghost measuring method. So
what we get so he screws that up. He doesn't he he doesn't under I think he didn't understand it. Right? Because he let them buy the house even though he said that they didn't like it.
No. He said they liked it. They they they loved it. In fact, they're.
Is that what he said? Yeah. Oh god. This Kakamame movie is all over the place. Okay.
I I yeah. So I so I think and because she so basically, happens is she's freaked out by the house, very uncomfortable. She quickly tells him to bring some refined sake. It has to be refined. She takes a gulp, can barely contain herself.
And so she goes and she spits it out the window, and she says, leave this in the room, I guess, to soak in the energies. I'm not exactly sure. And if they spit it out, don't buy it. If they're fine, then they don't have enough of a connection to the spirit world. So they'll be fine in the house?
And I guess that's what I I really wasn't quite sure to take away because I don't know. Were we meant to think that everybody in the Murakami family has some sense of this connection to the spiritual world? Same with Mizuho all the way over at school, like, are they all spiritually connected so that they're the the they will see these ghosts and and get killed by them?
Well, I think so. Yeah. I think so because this is where because the rule the rules change around the curse. It's it is no longer at some point, it's no longer confined by space or time. It moves Yeah. Moves through phone calls and relationships and physical contact, obviously. But everyone is equally doomed, I think, regardless of intention. That's the idea that I get from the end of this movie. And Yoshimi is then possessed by Kayako at the very end. Right?
You see the her turn outside the out outside the the through the screen door.
That's interesting. I didn't take it that way. So so what happens is her she calls her brother or he calls her and says, yeah. I sold the place. And she's like, you're supposed to tell me.
He's like, it's fine. I gave them the sake, and they were fine. Nobody had any issues. And she decides, his sister, Kiyoko decides, I'm just gonna walk past the house and just see what I see. And we do see her go by, and we see the husband just kind of, like, casually leaving, and he looks like he hasn't seen a ghost.
Everything seems hunky dory with him. Maybe what the maybe what her brother did is only give the husband Saki. I don't know. Anyway, she comes up to the house and she sees Kayako in the window, and I thought she was just seeing the ghost of Kayako. I didn't think she was seeing the wife actually possessed by Kayako. And as I I see that now written in the Wikipedia that that's exactly what it says, but I guess I I guess I was that clear?
I think it was clear.
You knew it was the wife, and she was possessed by Kayako.
I think it was clear. Yeah. Because that's when when what's her name? Kyoko looks at her. I mean, she's giving fear. Right? She turns around Oh, and yeah. Is terrified. And I read that as she's terrified because she knows that this woman that is possessed. And let's not forget, one of the things we don't we didn't talk about is that in that call, when the brother says, hey. You know, I need you to go check out my son. He's doing weird stuff now. Right?
Right. So Yeah.
It is moved into the real estate team, the curse.
Yeah. Well, and that's interesting because maybe Kyoko thought this sake thing would be would protect people from it. But the reality is, uh-uh. There's no protection from this curse. Like, once there's this stain here, it's just gonna bring everybody down. And if you make the mistake of even in the remotest way of interacting with the house or somebody from it, you're just gonna get killed. It's the end of it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't know how a mailman is able to keep delivering mail.
He just throws mail at the house from the street. I this is one of the things that I think works really well for the movie. You you should sort of see now how it takes off because this is such a cyclical story. Right? There is a fight with the curse. The curse wins. The house is clean. New people move in. There's a fight with the curse. The curse wins.
The house is clean. New people move in. And that's that's kind of a a it it's a fun way that these movies in general work. This movie is kind of a I don't know. You've done all the j horror stuff. I but this movie feels like a seed for others yet to come in terms of modern cyclical ghost stories.
Yeah. And I think there's an element to just the nature of a curse that just keeps going. Right? And I think that's something that, it seemed like an interesting element that this Japanese horror film kind of tackled. Because normally, when we see ghost stories, it's like somebody finds out their place is haunted, The ghost seems threatening.
Then they find out the ghost just really wants them to do something and to help them find resolution for whatever had happened to them. The person figures it out. The ghost is resolved, and the guilty party is actually either killed by the ghost or put in jail or something like that. Like, that seems to be a typical ghost story pattern. This chooses to break that by saying this ghost is never gonna be satisfied, and it's gonna spread, and just anyone who comes in contact with it will die tough.
And that's that's an interesting new angle that we have on this ghost story.
Well, and the fact that the the you know, as you're watching it, because of the nonlinear aspect of the film, you're watching it, and the moment you think you you're starting to piece something together, another branch of the story ends horribly. Right? And the the that recursive structure is really important to this movie, that there's no there's no start. There's no end. There's no escape. There's no closure. It's just horrible dread across the long arc of time.
Right. And it will be interesting to kind of continue this franchise. I'll be curious to, like, keep watching and explore, like, where do they really go with this franchise as it continues? Because like I said, there are a lot of these movies. And so I'm curious how in-depth does this does this curse go?
Like, you know, is it always Kayako and Toshio? Do they somehow in turn integrate some of these other ones? Because like you said, it was Kana who appears as a ghost to her friend. Right? When we see Hisayo come back, this is going back to the short film.
Her friend, like, is there as a ghost and, like, turns and looks at her and everything before Kayako comes in and kills her. So it does make me wonder, are these other people somehow now are their spirits also connected to this curse, and they're also somehow tied in and part of the stain?
Hey. Sidebar. This this movie come came out, I think, pretty quickly after the Japanese ring. Right? After Ringu? Ringu was,
I believe, two years earlier.
So I haven't seen that. I haven't seen Ringu. Like, when you look at the structure of that film, is there anything that this film sort of apes from that?
No. Not really. It's a very different type of story. And actually, that one's based on a novel series. So that one came from a novel. But I I suppose in some way, there is some element of that. There is a recursive element in it where in order to not get killed by the ghost in in the ring, you have to make a copy of this videotape and show it to somebody else, and then you've passed it on to them.
Okay.
And and you've saved yourself. So there is this there is this way to kind of keep her from coming for you, at least at least based on the first one. I haven't kind of continued that franchise either.
It's it's it's that cyclical fatalism. Yeah. Right? That's that is our that is our big overriding lesson is that these movies are cyclically fatalistic.
And you definitely start seeing that influence on films like It Follows, which, you know, is a US film about something similar. And in order to not get killed by it, you had to have sex with somebody, and then then it's coming after that person. The only difference with that one is, like, you can keep like, people can keep having sex to keep it from coming for them, But eventually, once it kills that person, it still will then work down the line, back up the line, eventually back to you. Like, you can't ever escape it as long except for the fact that people just have he keep having to have sex. Right.
So it's a story of STDs. That's it's the ethnology behind STDs.
In the movie. Yeah. That's right.
Right. Is the clap. Oh, goodness. Alright. Well, I said good luck with that at the beginning. And you said, I think this is gonna be easy and we just spent forty minutes trying to pull this movie apart. I feel vindicated.
I feel vindicated. I think that it's a pretty straightforward story. It's like three sections
It's just told me it's not.
No. I demonstrated it is. We just walked through it. It just I mean, it took the fact that it took forty minutes shouldn't make it sound like it was hard. I could have done it in if this show was a ten minute show, I could have done it in ten minutes.
Do you think? If I was here, do you think you could have done that? I don't think so. I think that would not have happened. I
think so.
I think that I actually I think the movie is good, and I think it's worth watching, especially from this perspective of, like, the the history of of modern fatalistic horror movies. I think it's fascinating. And I I'm really looking forward to talking about next week's movie, which I feel like maybe a bit of a lull before we get to the grudge. We've been excited about that.
Yeah. We shall see. We shall see. I yeah. I'm glad we're doing this series. This was a fun one. And, alright. That's it. So we'll be right back. But first, our credits.
The next reel is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Kyle Preston, Evgeny Bardyusha, The Bows, Oriole Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at v-numbers.com, boxofficemojo.com, imdb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
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Okay. Sequels and remakes. Oh, my goodness. Deep waters ahead.
Yeah. We are in it for sure. I mean, this I mean, we've got there's the the two short films that we already mentioned, Katsumi and 10 fours in a row. Those both, came out in 1998. They were, created by Shimizu.
He was actually studying under Kiyoshi Kurosawa, who we talked about when he talked about pulse and other j horror films. And he was brought on to do this. It was part of a show that was doing some, like, short films and everything. And so he was brought on to make those two short films, and then from that was able to to start making these feature films. And so and they were these first two are straight to video.
And so they definitely look at and Ju on the curse, Ju on the curse two, both came out in the year February. Then we get into the grudge films. Then we get into the American remakes. Then we have black ghost, white ghost. We have Ju on the beginning of the end.
Ju on the final curse. Sadiko versus Kayako. That's the ring versus that's like Freddie versus Jason with these with these ghosts. And then we have the reboot, the grudge in 2020, which I have heard nothing good from. We also have another short film called tales from the grudge in 2006 and the TV series also 2020 Ju On Origins. There was a video game in 02/2009, and, there's even a pachinko machine, Pete. So
Pachinko Kayako?
Not to mention all the novels, comics, graphic novels. Yeah. It's it is a massive franchise.
I have seen I've just seen I I having only seen that one Grudge movie, this is a, quite a playground. It is. I do think I'm gonna keep crawling through these movies too.
I I am now Just crawl through like a tie and go down the stairs.
Upside down and backwards. Yes. I'm for you mentioned when we started this, the Final Destination series, and there is something I've started that again because I'd only seen the first one, and I'm thinking about it for sister show sitting in the dark as one of my contributions. Don't tell the guys. But and it it has a weird sort of cyclical fatalism too.
Right? It's that that same sort of thing. Like, you can't you can do whatever you want. You can try, but you can't defeat the plans of death. Right. Which is a really interesting take. So I'm I'm loving the series so far. Only seen these couple of movies, but I'm I'm in it.
Yeah. Well, it's gonna be a fun one to kind of keep plowing through. And, you know, like a lot of these massive franchises, I've heard that there are some serious, valleys, but there are some peaks that that we will enjoy. So
Yeah. Well, that's that's our sequels and remakes. How did it do at the box office? Do you have a shortcut into the world of Jay Horror on direct to video release?
Yeah. It's a that's a real trick. This is one of those incredibly frustrating films because, no one puts these sorts of numbers out there. This is an example of, as you said, kind of the direct to video, aka Japanese v cinema. So I guess it's no surprise.
What I did find was this. The movie was released on home video 02/11/2000, and then AllMovies said it was, quote, a surprisingly effective low budget horror video from Japan, end quote. So I guess all we can take from that is that it was in fact low budget. So that's it.
Okay. I feel like anybody could have said that.
I didn't need to pull
a quote from all all
movie is what you're saying? Right.
I feel like you could just say that too. Andy Nelson said, it's surprisingly effective low budget horror video from Japan.
We're all
fine. Alright. Well, I'm again, glad we're in it. Can't wait for next week. It's gonna be fun.
Yeah. It will be fun for sure. Alright. We'll be right back for our ratings. But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie, Ju On the Curse two.
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I really enjoyed this. I mean, it's it's simply done, but effectively done. And I think that's what I I really took from this for the most part is that, Takashi Shimizu really has a handle on the tone. Even if I struggle with some moments of the dialogue, the tone through this just allowed for these quiet moments in a house to suddenly just be filled with some haunting dread. So I had a great time with this.
It is still kind of low budget rough, but I just think this is a great start to it. I'm I'm kind of torn between three and a half and four. I feel like I'm leaning toward, I think I'm gonna say three and a half, but, it could it could easily be a four star as well.
I am going to say, just because of where we are in the series, I'm gonna be a little bit more conservative than you. I'm gonna give it three stars. I enjoyed it. But, I I wanna leave some room to, for non direct to video improvements that I'm excited to see, especially now that I know the story of Toshio and Kayako and
Yeah. The backstory. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm I'm excited to see what's next. So, let's see. I'm optimistic. Three and a heart.
Alright. Well, that averages out to three and a quarter and a heart, rounds up to three and a half over at our account at Letterbox, which you can find there at the next reel. You can find me there at sotagreekfilm, and you can find Pete there at Pete Wright. So what did you think about Jew on the curse? We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the show talk channel over in our Discord community, where we will be talking about the movie this week.
When the movie ends,
our conversation begins. Letterbox TV, Andrew. How does Letterbox always do it?
Okay. I'd like to I'd like to enter the fray here with a review that comes it's been a long time since we've done one of these, but a review with no punctuation.
Oh, braver man than I. Go for it.
This is this is a a Margaret Atwood esque review. Here we go. From Nathaxony. Goodbye heart. Five stars and a heart. A grudge like LOL, a hole where a tooth should be. You worry with your tongue until the hole widens a little, then a little more, then a a little more. And should you be worried? Should you call doctor at least a triage line on the phone? You would do that except the only number your phone would call is 12 in a row like this.
(444) 444-4444 Do you think it means something? Your eyes roll back farther and farther in, but you can somehow still see the room as if you are above your own body, like up in the corner, crouched kitty corner to reality like a spider kitty, your stringy messy hair, like kitty toys hanging down for lonely or for to play or kill deer kill deer kill deer dragged away from the nest into the nest, a corrupted file bad gateway for (444) 444-4444 A murmur on arrhythmia like rotten ice held over into the late spring or early summer. It's rottenness grown florid where insects start to buzz and spill upright around and through it like it was going to open and something was going to come out an eye, a hand scattering of fingernails. That tooth, where did that tooth come from? Whose crime scene does this tooth belong to?
It is like a hole just opened up like a buttonhole without a button, a terrible feeling, like something pushing through that can't be stopped even though you are going to be sick. And there it is what you were looking for. It found you somehow inside of you. That is also a house that you have never been in so many times. A curse in the shape of a woman that walks or almost walks or, you know, close enough.
Whatever this is dragging myself down from the spider leg crawl space curled up in death like a sleeping cat purring in dreams when it catches something. Its legs move. But what if when kitty dreams it is catching something? It is really catching something, but doesn't know because it is dreaming and forgets it is not awake? It's funny.
See, why are you not laughing? I am laughing. This is what my laughter sounds like, like a rasping purring that gets so loud it vibrates holes in this reality that got left out forgotten until, like, a photograph with cutout faces. One of those faces could be yours. It could look like my face looks now. Do you want to see where are you going? I love you. I love you. I love you. It is funny. It is funny joke we are sharing.
Wow. Kudos to you for taking that on. That was
great. Is an exhausting review, but I think I get it.
Yeah. No. It's well, yeah. It it definitely speaks to kind of, like, the mood and the there's the whole vibe with this. Right? Yeah.
It's
That's pretty much it. It is a creepy one.
Nailed it. Point by point.
Well, I just have this simple one. It's four and a half and a heart by Gabs who says, if someone meowed at me, I'd do the same. Yeah.
Okay. Very good in contrast. Very simple. Remarkably simple. Yes. Yeah. Indeed. Thanks, Letterboxd.